Maybe it's just me, but I've heard so many variations of "We had a wonderful two weeks, Hawaii was great, I'm sure the beaches were nice. ::Giggle::"

This has not been my experience at all! Either like PP's the HCs have either lived together before marriage, or at the very least like played Scrabble regularly for years; or they absolutely not the type of people who would make reference to Scrabble at all for any reason!

The extra card would have either our contact info or our contact info plus our parents' - not the travel agent's (all plans of mentioning registries in the invitations got thankfully scrapped).

Guess I'll scrap this one too. I do take full responsibility for it: again, it comes down to distant relatives and our parents' friends. While they might have our parents' number (although they don't seem to use it much - I'm looking at you, Aunt L.), I'm pretty sure they don't have ours and I was hoping to make it easier to coordinate things - not necessarily to let them know about the registry.

You could put an "at home" card in the invitation, complete w/ phone, address, email addresses. And info about "after the wedding my name will/won't change."

Wording it something like: "After the wedding: John and Mary Johnson, address, town, phone, email" or "After the wedding: Mary Zibelski and John Johnson, address, town, phone, email"(though people may think these aren't valid before, I suppose)

And that coordinating is sometimes what's good about wedding websites (though if you don't see them often, there probably aren't many people in your circles who'd know what to do with one).

OP, I think that part of the difficulty is that DF is viewing "off registry" gifts as a problem at all. Word of mouth or no word of mouth, these are gifts. That people are providing through their resources. Instead of working on reassuring him he will get what he wants, work on being thankful for whatever he gets.

Part of the problem is that he's paying any attention to gifts at all. That's one of the problems of a registry--the recipients of gifts are supposed to never think about it.

They're not even, really supposed to be asked about what they want; picking the gift is the giver's responsibility, and dumping it onto the B&G is really not polite.

One thing you might mention to him, to persuade him to drop the whole subject: Even people who are generous, and who would probably give cash, are likely to give $50 instead of $75 if they feel that you've been "eyeing the cash in their wallet"--coveting is the old-fashioned word. So it's very bad PR to let that sort of thing leak out; you don't want to offend people and make them feel that they have to protect themselves for your avarice--right when they were about to generously give you a present.

I don't think including a further information card is necessarily a bad idea, especially if it'll have your name/phone number or parent's name/phone numbers on it. I wouldn't say it's for "further information" though - that makes people think there's something they're missing, what if the invite isn't complete, etc. I'd say it should be more of "If you have questions, here are correct numbers/address/emails/whatever to reach us at." If they have a question about a registry, they can call and ask. If they have a question about whether Great Aunt Mildred is going to be wearing that awful charcoal and puce green hat again...well, maybe remind them that is Great Aunt Mildred's favorite hat?

My favorite story of how "pulling" gift info is supposed to work goes like this. DHtB and I had decided on a cruise for our honeymoon and were super excited, so we were telling everyone in our family. My mom told a friend who wanted to give us a gift. So my mom called me and said, "I told Carol Jo you were going on a cruise. She goes on cruises all the time! She wants to know what line you're going to be on and the name of the ship so she can do some research and see if there's anything you should know." I gave my mom the info - Royal Caribbean, Enchantment of the Seas - and thought nothing more of it. When we got to the ship for our honeymoon, there was a note from Carol Jo, informing us that we had $100 of onboard credit for us to use however we liked. We used it for a pretty sweet snorkeling/beach trip we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise. My mom and Carol Jo had "pulled" the information from me, without me having to volunteer anything, beyond that we'd made honeymoon plans.

I agree to not include the card. It really doesn't serve any purpose and will confuse people. If I received a card like that I would be wondering what I needed extra information on. If there is other information that they need to know, then include a sheet that has hotel names/numbers. where to park, etc.

If people need to get in touch with you or your parents, they will figure out how to do so.

I agree to not include the card. It really doesn't serve any purpose and will confuse people. If I received a card like that I would be wondering what I needed extra information on. If there is other information that they need to know, then include a sheet that has hotel names/numbers. where to park, etc.

If people need to get in touch with you or your parents, they will figure out how to do so.

You can put your contact info on one of those info sheets, but it does seem weird to be inviting someone to your wedding that doesn't have any contact info for you.

I think it's pretty standard to include contact info with an invitation, if only for the purpose of RSVP'ing. So you could include a couple lines somewhere with "RSVP by date: Name, phone number, email." Or maybe you already have response cards with that info. In either case, people who have questions about anything will contact you that way. If you already have something like this, then I don't think you need a "for further information" card. It would be kind of redundant.

I don't think it's a bad idea to include your parents' names, if you're inviting relatives/friends of family who are distant enough that they might need your parents' names to put you in the proper context. Especially if your given names are rather common. (In my family it would be, "Now which James Miller is that? Is that Jimmy's son? Or Big Jim's son? Or Jamie Jr's son?" ) There are various invitation wordings that incorporate the parents' names...

Elizabeth & James MillerandFrances & Robert Smithrequest the honor of your presence at the wedding of their childrenAnna Elizabeth MillerandPeter Robert Smith

That's pretty traditional. Some might feel this implies the parents are hosting and/or paying for the wedding. I'm sure there's other wording that works the parents' names in without suggesting that.

I think the parents' contact info would only be included if they were, in fact, the ones handling the RSVPs. I guess, if you don't have response cards already, you could make a big RSVP card with multiple contact people--like you, and your mom, and your future father-in-law, so people could contact whoever they felt closer to. I don't think there's anything rude or tacky about that, you just run the risk of an RSVP not being conveyed correctly the more people who are involved.

As for handwritten vs. printed, I don't see a problem with that, as long as your handwriting is neat and legible, of course. Some people might feel it lends a personal touch. Several of my friends have had great success with buying cardstock from a craft store and printing info on it with their home printers--they actually do the entire invitation package that way. So that could be an option, too, if you'd rather have it typed--just try to find some cardstock and a font that matches your invitations.

Maybe it's me, but I don't see the contact card bad. However, I do think some of the posters might react negatively in this thread as the original question was about registries.

Around here it's common that invite itself has the contact information. It is meant to serve as contact point, often it's couple or parents but it's also normal to have "maid of honor" or bestman as contact point. The contact number in invitation is often serving as one way to do the rsvp (for those that for example need to tell about dietary restrictions and prefer to explain the situation rather than just writing "fish" on some paper), asking for more info about place or other similar stuff, including also the gift ideas. As it is also the idea that one designated person collects the phone rsvps to avoid mix-ups, the contact number might well be person that guest is not familiar with. (eg friends might not know parent's information, relatives won't know bestman's info and parents' friends might not even know the coupes contact info.)

So if this is the kind of contact number you wish to have, so that really the guest can ask about any information at all regarding the wedding, then I think it's fine.

The bottom line is: You can't dictate how someone else spends their money.

If someone wants to give you a gift, they'll give you a gift. You can point people towards the honeymoon registry all you want, but some people simply won't consider that a present that they want to give you.

You're in Europe, so the etiquette may be a bit different over there, but in general, etiquette says that you don't ask for gifts. You don't expect gifts.

There's a bit of a conflict with the fact that etiquette also says that wedding guests should give a gift.

So it isn't unusual for brides and grooms to expect gifts.

But while you can guide people to your gifts of choice, you cannot make them choose the gift that you really want.

The wedding website is, IMO, an ingenious way to give people a chance to know where you are registered without the Happy Couple going around telling people.

Word of mouth is also useful, as family and friends to tend to contact those they know are close to the Happy Couple--parents, siblings, members of the wedding party--to ask about registries and gifts.

But putting registry information in the invitation is not approved by etiquette.

And any attempts to direct where the gift money is sent/spent could easily backfire, as Toots mentions above.

The OP's DF needs to accept the fact that some guests will not take advantage of the honeymoon registry, and that putting the registry info in the invitations is not a good move, and work out a solution from there.

I think there is sometimes a conflict over gift expectations, as camlan says, and it can be hard to see when you (general) have tipped over the line--you're so excited about getting specific things, or being able to take a trip you couldn't afford on your own, or something like that, and then someone goes and gives you something that does not fit with this plan. We're only human, it can be hard to take a step back and realize, "No, I should be grateful for this gift, no matter what it is." (I do think there are mean-spirited, dismissive gifts that one does not need to be grateful for, but I don't think that's the case here.)

For example, my friend Amy put things on her wedding registry and baby shower registry, and she wanted those things, not something similar, not a cheaper version, not a different color. She's pragmatic and decisive, she researched everything before deciding on it, and she truly didn't understand why someone would get her something different. She wanted sage green towels in brand X, someone gave her chocolate brown towels in brand Y. Why? Obviously they didn't realize that the color, brand, and store were selected very carefully, and that she will immediately take the brown towels back to the store without even unfolding them. I think I accompanied her on at least 3 trips to return things to stores, before the wedding even took place. And returning something to a store is not always the fastest or most pleasant experience, and you start thinking more about the time and inconvenience and gas, and "Why couldn't they have just given me something from my list?! Was that really so hard?!"

But of course, once you get too far down that path, I think you're in danger of becoming rude. I suppose if you always keep it to yourself, or at least don't let the giver know, you're functionally still good. But if it bleeds out into how you think about the person--"I really wanted X, why couldn't they just do that?"--that can be bad.

I think it is rude to be outwardly ungrateful for a gift - one should always be cheerful and thankful. But I also think it is self-centered (I am struggling with the term I mean) to think poorly of someone because they were not blown away by your "thoughtful" gift that is something they don't want or need. Like the towels in Lynn2000 example. It would be silly to be offended that someone else's taste is not the same as yours, and that the brown brand Y towels were returned and not used.

I think it is rude to be outwardly ungrateful for a gift - one should always be cheerful and thankful. But I also think it is self-centered (I am struggling with the term I mean) to think poorly of someone because they were not blown away by your "thoughtful" gift that is something they don't want or need. Like the towels in Lynn2000 example. It would be silly to be offended that someone else's taste is not the same as yours, and that the brown brand Y towels were returned and not used.

Yes, I do think there is a very fine line there. For example, Amy has allergies and asthma, and when she was picking out baby toiletries she researched which kinds were best for sensitive skin (both for her own use and assuming the baby might very well be like her). I remember one of her "big" baby shower gifts was a baby tub filled with all kinds of toiletries... none of which were the brands from her list, but rather mainstream brands that she had already looked into and rejected. No one in her immediate family (like her parents or sister) were going to use those brands and they're the sort of thing that are sometimes hard to return. I'm not sure what she did with them in the end, hopefully donated them somewhere that they could be used. Otherwise 80% of the gift would literally go straight to the garbage. You just kind of think, well, that's unfortunate, I'm sure that's not what the giver envisioned when they were happily putting this gift together, but in a sense they just wasted their money, if their goal was to get Amy something she would like and use. If she hadn't specified any brands/products, that would be one thing, but she had already expressed her preferences, so to go with something directly opposed to them seems a little odd to me. Also you kind of have to know Amy, and how she does things, and you would think anyone who came to her baby shower would, but obviously that's not always true.

But at the same time, I think it's not healthy to hold that sort of thing against someone, unless the gift and relationship are such that you really think they're making a negative statement to you. Sometimes--most of the time--you just have to appreciate the genuinely kind thought, and write off the actual gift.

To bring it back to the OP, I can see why her DF might be disappointed if they get gifts other than the one thing they want, which is basically money towards their honeymoon. But on the other hand, there's part of gift-giving that's about the giver, too, not just about fulfilling the recipient's shopping list. If it becomes super-important that THE ONE AWESOME THING be obtained, I think that's something a person or couple needs to take care of themselves, so they can keep control of it, not ask/hope others pitch in, and get mad when they don't (general, not aimed at the OP in particular).

To bring it back to the OP, I can see why her DF might be disappointed if they get gifts other than the one thing they want, which is basically money towards their honeymoon. But on the other hand, there's part of gift-giving that's about the giver, too, not just about fulfilling the recipient's shopping list. If it becomes super-important that THE ONE AWESOME THING be obtained, I think that's something a person or couple needs to take care of themselves, so they can keep control of it, not ask/hope others pitch in, and get mad when they don't (general, not aimed at the OP in particular).

I agree with the bolded. I just personally don't want my gifts to be in vain because the recipient neither wants nor needs what I gave them. If my goal is to give them something *I* want them to have, as opposed to something they actually want, I shouldn't be surprised or upset that they don't want or need what *I* wanted them to want or need.